


could you tie me down

by phae



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Getting the Band Back Together, Kidnapping, M/M, Post-Avengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 12:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phae/pseuds/phae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>One thing Clint can say in favor of his current kidnappers, the black bag they shoved over his face is freshly laundered. Downy Mountain Spring, if Clint’s any judge.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	could you tie me down

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like this is going somewhere. I've already started a version for Phil's side of things. Title is from The Click Five's _Kidnap My Heart_.

One thing Clint can say in favor of his current kidnappers, the black bag they shoved over his face is freshly laundered. Downy Mountain Spring, if Clint’s any judge. And they’re competent criminals, he’ll give them that; they have him tied with his arms crossed over his chest, palms facing out, and he barely did more than wiggle in his bindings before the muzzle of a 9mm was pushed flush to his temple.

 

As far as Clint’s concerned, they’ve earned his respect in addition to his simmering rage. So instead of beating himself up over letting somebody get the drop on him, he’s decided to direct the majority of his anger over his current situation at them. But he’s still peeved that he didn’t notice anybody following him, that he didn’t notice _anything_ until the prongs of a handheld taser where pressed against his spine.

 

Clint’s been thinking that his spy skills were falling a bit to the wayside lately. Since the Battle of New York, and thanks in big part to camera phones and social media plastering his face all over the World Wide Web, Clint’s been sidelined from his usual SHIELD missions and stuck on Avenging duty. The baddies he’s normally up against these days are anything but subtle, and he was starting to fear it was making him complacent, which, apparently, it has.

 

Granted, he didn’t exactly put up a fight about the reassignment. He could have easily opted out of undercover or long-term ops and just taken on missions that needed him up high with a gun, but there’s only one handler with an appropriate clearance level left at SHIELD that he can stand, and no offense to Jasper, but he’s no Phil.

 

Sitwell will snark back on the comms with him, yeah, but he doesn’t let deadpan comments slip that Clint can mistake for flirting on a good day. And when shit hits the fan, Clint knows Sitwell has the situation under control; experience has born that out, and in the end things work out more or less. But when he’s stranded on a balcony with no exit and guns aimed his way, he doesn’t _know_ that.

 

‘Cause Jasper’s got a mouth on him, and not in the way that Clint appreciates on a let-me-fuck-it level, and when the shitstorm gets kicked up, Jasper’s handling it but with a lot of commentary that Clint could do without. He needs a calm voice in his ear on those ops, acting as eyes in the back of his head guiding him home while he focuses his attention on dodging bullets.

 

Without Phil in his ear, Clint just doesn’t feel safe working with SHIELD. And at least as one of the Avengers, he can fight the blatant bad guys and not worry about Fury and lies and possible double crosses in the field and on his downtime. Without someone there to help him, someone he trusts without thinking about it like he did Phil, Clint hasn’t felt up to stepping back into the role of Agent Barton.

 

So, yeah, here Clint is, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey and blinded like a skittish new colt, sitting in the back of an SUV headed east out of the city. He’s been amusing himself by going through his mental file of Baddies with a Hawk Specific Grudge, but so far he’s come up with nada.

 

The Avengers don’t have any loose ends in the wind, other than Loki, but this is hardly his style. A Loki kidnapping would involve a good deal more fanfare and monologing. Any hit lists he may have landed on while working ops for SHIELD don’t have anything linking the anonymous sniper picking off corrupt officials to Hawkeye, the Painfully Human Avenger. SHIELD always makes a point of taking out the Big Bads that know too much about active operatives. Plus, Clint can’t recall running into any organizations that were this, well, _organized._

 

The SUV comes to an abrupt stop, and Clint, unable to brace himself, jerks forward. The kidnapper with the gun on him, the same one, he thinks, that tased him, catches him with an arm around his shoulders and pushes him back upright.

 

Clint hears the driver turn off the engine and open his door. A few seconds later, Clint catches a whiff of smoggy air as the rear door on his side is opened. The driver grabs his upper arm and starts to pull him out of the car while the guard pushes him out with a hand to the small of his back, and Clint doesn’t bother biting back a growl at the intimate touch.

 

He can’t justify fighting back against his abductors yet as they direct him out of the car and into a warehouse building, based on the scrape of a metal door and the way their footsteps echo around them as they walk. He thinks there’s just the two guys with him, but he can’t see shit, obviously, so he has no way of knowing if someone is set up in the warehouse already waiting on them.

 

The hand at his back slides up to his shoulder and presses down until Clint falls into an office chair. He plants his feet and pushes off to the left a bit, just to test the motion of the chair, and he easily swivels into a couple rotations, rolling a few feet as well. Odd. He shoves off again, backwards this time, and still no one attempts to stop him as he glides across the cement floor.

 

Footsteps sound off to his right, and Clint figures that if his kidnappers couldn’t be bothered to put him in a bolted down chair, then they can chase after him until he gets bored enough to stop or they get pissed off enough to shoot him. He pushes off to the left, adding a twist so that he can spin languidly as he goes.

 

One of the kidnappers huffs out a sigh and the footsteps stop. “Clint,” an exasperated voice admonishes, and Clint presses the toes of his boots down to drag himself to a quick stop.

 

The kidnapper starts walking towards him again, and Clint is torn between pushing his chair back to get away and surging up out of the seat to meet the man halfway because he _knows that voice_. It’s the voice of a ghost, but Clint can’t be bothered to care because this is all some convoluted dream, and he’s sat quietly through all of his subconscious’ ridiculousness, so he deserves to get some kind of reward for it and it better at least include Phil’s face if not the illusion of a hug or a kiss or _something_.

 

The footsteps stop and Clint can feel knees brush against his own, and then the black bag is lifted away. Clint’s left blinking in the dim light of a dock warehouse, drinking in the sight of Phil hungrily and disbelievingly. He leans forward until his face is pressed into Phil’s belly and lets Phil’s crisp dress shirt soak up the tears suddenly rolling down his cheeks.

 

“Sorry for all the cloak and dagger in getting you here,” Phil says as he lifts a hand to card his fingers through Clint’s hair. It feels so _real_ and Clint desperately needs this to all be real. “But I’m meant to be dead.”

 

Clint tries to laugh, but it’s sounds more like a sob. His chin presses into the buckle of Phil’s belt as he asks, “The hell, sir? You could have just called. You know me, you say jump, I’m already off the building.”

 

Phil’s hand falls away from his head and he begins to unwind the rope securing Clint’s arms. “I know. We needed to act fast before Fury could put a tail on you, though.”

 

“We?” Clint falls back in the chair as Phil starts massaging his forearms to increase the blood flow. He looks past Phil to get eyes on the driver, expecting to see Tasha, but instead he finds Jasper, who waves before going back to whatever he’s engrossed with on his laptop.

 

“Natasha’s next,” Phil explains simply. He bends at the waist and brings his hands up to cradle Clint’s face. "I'm okay. You're okay." Clint nods shailky and Phil kisses him, lips barely parted, but he lingers long enough that Clint can hardly bring himself to complain.

 

Clint slips his arms around Phil's waist, pulling him down onto his lap, and Phil must have been missing him just as much as Clint's missed Phil because he falls into Clint and rests there. After soaking up Phil's presence, warm and solid and definitely real, he mumbles into Phil's neck, "Why was Fury putting a tail on me?"

 

Phil huffs out a laugh. "We have quite a bit to catch up on. For now, just know that we’re branching out from SHIELD and the other alphabet agencies.”

 

"Branching out to what exactly?"

 

"The Secure Weaponized and Organized Response Division," Phil says, deadpan as ever even while he's still curled around Clint.

 

"SWORD?" Clint asks incredulously.

 

"Phil was trying to be funny," Jasper pipes up from behind his computer. "I've already lectured him on the error of his ways."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Taking liberty with the whole SWORD thing, yeah, but it hasn't been mentioned in MCU yet, so...


End file.
